Got Grace?

My mouth dropped open in indignation as my professor made his announcement to the class:

“A lot of you didn’t do so well on our last test, and I don’t want one of your test grades in the grade book to be so low. If I have given you back your test that means you got a A, so this will not apply to you, but for everyone else, I want to give you the chance to take your quiz home and redo it for credit. That way, you can all have a chance to get an A. ”

I couldn’t believe it. We had had so much time to prepare for this test. Our professor had given us an extra week to study, and even provided study handouts that explained the test material, in addition to setting aside special special office hours for us to ask him questions. There was no reason everyone should have failed the test. But that was not what was bugging me. As I stared down at my test, one of the only two in the class with a large A written in red ink at the top, I was seething. It’s not fair, I thought to myself, I studied for this test and worked hard to get this A. I deserve it. Half of these people probably didn’t even study, and now look. How dare he give them a second chance? And It’s a take-home too! The are just going to look up the answers! This is like a free A. Why did I even bother trying…

Full of “righteous” anger, I sulked all that day and the next. When the time came to hand back the take-home tests during the next class I was still bitter, and I abruptly cut off my classmate, who was telling me how glad he was to have another chance to get a decent grade. Shocked by my sudden interruption, my usually cheerful and talkative classmate became silent, and at that moment I realized I had made a terrible mistake. I was horrified that I had let myself pointlessly marinate in feelings of anger and disdain so long that I couldn’t even treat my friends with kindness.

As I was sitting there contemplating what had happened, the Lord brought to my mind the story of Jonah and the vine ( Jonah 4:1-11). For those who have never heard this story, Jonah basically sits around sulking for way too long because God shows mercy to the Ninevites, and God has to teach him about grace with an object lesson involving a vine and a worm. I had always disliked this part of Jonah’s story because I felt like Jonah’s attitude was overblown and unrealistic, yet here I was acting the same way.

Sadly, many of us, myself included, have a hard time wrapping our minds around God’s grace. It is as if we are unable to comprehend why on earth God would choose to offer grace to us, and so we refuse to accept this mercy, and in turn we are unable to offer it to others.

I am so thankful that God is better at giving out grace than I am, because we would be in a sorry state if God showed us compassion only when he felt like we deserved it. In Jonah’s story, God asked Jonah whether he had any right to be angry. Jonah certainly didn’t have any right to be angry with God’s judgement, and I didn’t have the right to be angry with my professor’s compassion. But God has every right to hold our sins against us, and yet he does not.

Perhaps the most powerful example of unconditional grace I have seen comes from the 2017 movie, Wonder Woman. Now, I may be a little biased, as this is one of my absolute favorite films, but I think one scene of the movie perfectly mirrors the way God lavishes grace on us.

In this scene, Wonder Woman (alias Diana) has just witnessed the horrifying destruction of several towns caused by the German forces and their new style of gas warfare during WWI. While facing off with her nemesis, the Greek god Ares, she is given the chance to kill the leader of the lethal gas research, a woman named Dr. Poison. Although she almost gives into her anger and destroys Dr. Poison, Wonder Woman remembers her friend Steve, who had loved his people so much that he sacrificed his life to keep any more people from dying from the poison gas, and she stops, refusing to continue the cycle of vengeance. During this scene, she has this conversation with Ares:

Ares: She is the perfect example of these humans, and unworthy of your sympathy in every way. Destroy her, Diana. You know she deserves it; they all do.

Diana: You’re wrong about them. They are everything you say, but so much more.

Ares: Lies! They do not deserve your protection.

Diana: It’s not about deserve. It’s about what you believe. And I believe in love.

Wonder Woman, Warner Bros. Pictures (2017)

Diana saves the world not with violence, power, or revenge, as Ares wishes, but with love and grace. Not only that, but Ares is defeated by her light.

In a parallel fashion, God triumphs over the power of sin and death with Grace. When the devil stands by, accusing us of sin and bringing up our unworthiness before God, God has every right to completely obliterate us. And yet He remembers His son, who sacrificed his life for us so that we would not have to fear eternal death. As Isaiah 53:6 says, “We like sheep have gone astray, each of us have turned our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” To God, it’s not about what we deserve, it is about what he believes; and God believes in love!